Morning journal and courier., 1887-10-31

The Exciting Sport That Has Recently
 Been Had Along the Upper Shrews-
 bury.
 There has been excellent blackbird shoot
 ing above Red Bank on the Shrewsbury for
 several weeks, but the birds are now thinned
 out or driven off by the guns. In the height
 of the season thess birds assemble in the
 reeds on either side of the river in swarms that must include millions. The sportsmen
 have only half an hour-the thirty minutes
 before dark-in which to shoot them, but
 during that time the fiocks that sail over
 head blaeken the air like great clouds.
 The gunners who have taken their stations
 in the characteristic clumsy batteaux which
 the shallow water demands either hug one
 of the walls of reeds or heap green boughs
 upon their boats to deceive the birds.
 In either cas9 the bulk of the birds
 will fly close to the earth ove the sports
 men and one or more. focks will drop into
 the reeds close at hand. They fly so close to-
 gether that the slaughter is apt to be consid- erable if good close shot is obtained. The black bird is worth the game. He is between sparrow and robbin in size and feeds on corn and ehestnuts. He is gourmet among birds.
 
 birds the scene is exciting, but to one who simply happens in that part of the river at that time it is both beautiful and novel. As the hocks of birds drop into the thickets of reeds and cling to the straight and densely crowded stalks tLey look like black fruit in tropic profusion in an orchard of trees un- known to fact or fiction. As they drop 1 upon their perches they begin to chatter, and I it is no exaggeration to say that they fill | the air for great distance with their limp l i'd, plaintive little notes. To unsophis- I ticated sportsman the sight of long, dense wall of reeds or grass dotted black with | plump birds is not only tempting, but one that he feels sure he can profit by. He rows noiselessly to where he sees the birds, mak- | ing his boat creep in utter silence to the edge of the grassy wall. As he begins to attain 1 the position determined on-pshaw! there is I little rustic and the nearest birds disap- pear. Never mind, he remarks to himself, 1 there are heaps more of them further along. He grasps his oars again and renews his si- | lent motion, but thunder and Mars! at every l foot of the boats progress there is that same 1 little rustic in the reeds and few yards more of the ripe and winged fruit disap pears. The birds appear to drop below tht parted tops of the reeds, where they have | been perching, into the dense under part where they cannot be seen. Some say, how ever, that they also move back into safer quarters.
 The sportsman sees that his is a losing game, and knowing that startled birds often
 rise when settled down in that way, utters 8 yell or simply coughs. The ruse succeeds as far as disturbing the birds is concerned. They do rise, but not above the reeds. They fly between the waving tops and are gone while their pursuer waits for them to give him shot. If he does send a despairing shot after them and is afterward of the opin- ion that he saw one or two fall, he will learn something else that he did not know, which is that he must have thigh boots or he can never get through the deep mud in which the reeds grow to pick up his quarry. Either boots CT else a dog.
 But if he gets nothing, as many do, he will have the satisfaction of knowing that he is in the heart of scenery as beautiful as travellers have gone thousands of miles to see; for the scene on the Shrewsbury above Newman Springs is exquisite in the
 extreme. The little valley, with it's broad
 stream winding between the wall of grass, | is itself walled in by towering and heavily
 wooded hills. The ground is illumined
 with wild flowers, and the tall limbs of | the monarch trees are topped with dense foliage. Above ali floats a sky as clear and blue as painter ever reproduced. There
 are two or three houses on the hillsides but they are hid and the view is one of | wilderness and perfect nature as we'll as of delicious peace.